It is a very thick morass, for you as well for me as a reader. I suggest (1) you lay out the options in list order, and (2) you clarify the benefit you expect to receive from various licensing arrangements, and then detail the costs. Note that these need not all be monetary considerations--a benefit can be "X more eyes see GLP" and a cost can be "interpersonal stress of revenue sharing". But help me (and others) by giving a basic cost-benefit analysis in as quantified terms as possible. It might also clarify your thoughts.

Sounds like your biggest roadblock for commerical licensing is concern over revenue sharing back to the volunteers. If so, you can get creative about how to manage the situation.

Jason Burwen said:

Sounds like your biggest roadblock for commerical licensing is concern over revenue sharing back to the volunteers. If so, you can get creative about how to manage the situation.

By which I mean, don't let that stop you from thinking through each option!

Ok, I put the list up above, and it's also available on the workspace on this topic, where we could start doing a pros and cons list for each one. I'll get on that soon.

If anyone knows anyone with experience in thinking through this sort of thing, please invite them over here!

Update: After attending the iCommons Summit (iCommons is the international arm of the Creative Commons) in Dubrovnik last month, I revised the post above to make it simpler.

I am still not 100% certain about what license I personally favor, but I am leaning towards the CC-BY-SA ("attribution-sharealike"), which would allow for commercial uses of the video that we produce. This is the equivalent of the license used by Wikipedia and Linux and although it means that other people could use our video commercially, ultimately I see more potential benefit in this than harm.

The core benefits that I see are increased visibility for the project, more people affected by our work, more people willing to contribute and generate new uses for the material knowing that they could make money with it, and finally, the possibility that "commercial" institutions such as galleries or museums could potentially just put up exhibits of the work themselves, using their own ticket revenues to compensate for the costs.

While GL would not necessarily get any revenue from this, we need to keep in mind that we are a non-profit organization and our goal is to disseminate our work.

I could still be persuaded that adding a non-commercial clause to the license could be a good idea. That would give us some control over exhibition of the material, allowing us to negotiate percentages of the revenues from showings or exhibitions to come back to the project.

I think though that we can't underestimate the value of making what we produce totally free under the BY-SA license. This puts GL into a totally different economy and sphere of cultural production, taking us out of the traditional documentary model and really producing something that is for common use for anyone anywhere.

Then again, the question is how much the non-commercial clause dilutes this...

Anyhow, I could go on and on about this, but from the lack of discussion here, it feels a bit like I'm talking to a wall. Please, someone, anyone, help!

Somehow it seems that if getting television companies to put money back into something that is free on the Internet is within your reach, then this would make the most sense. In this way you could use the most free licence (CC BY) for the web version, make a high-res version available under a non-commercial licence (so that non-profit museums etc could use the materials around the world) and then actively pursue commercial contracts with television companies to sustain your activities in the long term.

The question really is: how do you see Global Lives in the next 5 years? Will it be an organisation based in a particular place with volunteer groups around the world? How will the organisation be structured? What will your activities be?

Once you've decided that, then you can look at what makes the most sense in terms of licencing agreements.

Oh, and I forgot to say: you guys rock. This is an amazing project :)

Thanks for your input, Heather!!!! Anybody else have any thoughts??

I guess you didn't like my question ;) But I'm still going to nudge you on it.

Global Lives as it currently stands (at least as far as the website is concerned) is 'an installation that can be assembled anywhere on earth'. Lets focus on that for a moment, since I'm assuming that the future after this project is not set in stone yet.

If the primary focus of the project is to have museums etc replicate the model, then it makes absolute sense to make all the digital materials (high definition video, architectural plans etc) available for free. Since television viewing of materials is secondary to the main goal, then it makes absolute sense for them to have to pay for it.

Another good way of thinking about this is looking at your factors for success. What would the most successful Global Lives project look like in the future? Would it be to have 5 television stations showing the material? Or would it be to have 5 museums replicating the entire model? I'm guessing its the latter.

Then the next question is a question of sustainability. And then its really a question of whether you're thinking of how to sustain this particular project or whether there's a longer term strategy on what you'd like to do. If it's this particular project you're focusing on, then I'd suggest keeping your overheads as low as possible (as you have done) and then actively marketing the org to local volunteers who have inroads with museums etc. and then, secondarily, to television stations who might want to show the film.

Note that the project will only be truly sustainable if you can get other countries to show the entire exhibition and so I think this should be a major focus of the work over the next while.

What do you think?

Hi Heather!

These are really excellent and provocative comments that I personally need to think about in much more detail and need to discuss more with our key stakeholders, advisory board, etc.

I am taking a global lives hiatus for the next month or so as I finish my master's thesis and prepare to move back to the US after nearly three years in Brazil. Once I get settled in California at the beginning of September, I'll be able to really sit down and dedicate some time to these very very important strategic questions, which will hopefully really take us much further in answering the questions that this post set out to answer.

Since Omidyar.net will be shutting down in September, we'll also need to migrate this discussion to our new home, likely a drupal site. I will keep everyone posted.

Thank you!!!

Well, since Dave is off on "thesis vacation" (much deserved...), I don't know if he will read this note, but perhaps the rest of you will have some thoughts. Rhizome.org just implemented a Creative Commons license for its content. http://rhizome.org/thread.rhiz?t hread=26665&page=1) Rhizome is quite popular with artists (visual, performance, etc.) and GLP might be able to learn something from Rhizome's process.

I agree with Heather--if your end goal is to produce a physical object (an exhibition) that can be easily replicated, at low cost, anywhere in the world, then your approach to licensing should take that into consideration.

Also, since GLP is a collective, you should consider the possibility of divergent member interests. Many a utopian artists' collective has been torn apart, later, by members' divergent visions. Or, in some cases, by the desire to be able to retain control of a portion of the project--for commercial or other reasons.

There are, I'm sure, some legal issues to be worked out here. I'm not a copyright or IP lawyer, so I'll abstain from comment on that front. But Rhizome did consult a lawyer in the field, and it would be interesting to hear her thoughts.